


Lizbob Supernatural Meta (season 9)

by lizbobjones



Series: Lizbob Supernatural Meta Collection [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Meta Essay, Non Fiction, archived from elizabethrobertajones blog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 19:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16960482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizbobjones/pseuds/lizbobjones
Summary: side note: this house is used in SO MANY episodes but these are the most visually obvious aside from anything else.





	1. Dean and Gadreel parallels

>  [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/148633996007)

> Gadreel killing Abner as the negative mirror of Dean not killing Cas / in general Gadreel carrying out the killings Metatron told him to do as the negative mirror of Dean not carrying out the killings the Mark of Cain pushed him to do. Discuss.

* * *

 

Idk if you’ve been glancing at my rewatch at all but Dean/Gadreel parallels has been my state of meltdown for the past month. :P (Actually, since ever, but who’s counting)

He gets to label his arc in 9x01 by arguing if angels are creatures of wrath or compassion - obviously the ideal being compassion and what he originally strives for, especially with his new chance at life after the fall. Then of course Metatron drives him onto the path of wrath, and I guess he serves as a warning/example about revenge arcs for Dean’s arc in the season, as killing Kevin is one of the “I did what I had to do” things that parallel Dean’s decent of saying that 1000 times - just a job or a compromise or whatever, which is the start of the path. Then he has to kill Thaddeus except the temptation to kill for revenge makes it much less an obligation and more temptation/personal satisfaction (and after this kill he meets Metatron at the same bar Crowley then comes to Dean and recruits him to kill Abaddon, the last on Cain’s list that starts Dean on the life in reverse prophecy & for him also more like venting frustration/settling a score than doing a job) - and then Abner tells Gadreel he didn’t want him to kill Thaddeus, especially not on his behalf, and he’s trying to argue for compassion still while Gadreel has fallen down the path of wrath. He was given the vessel’s name by Metatron, so he had the option to tell Abner to run and fulfil the hit (he COULD have done but thematically and by Gadreel’s expression as they talk it seems unlikely he let him go just because he wouldn’t serve well as a dark mirror to the path Dean’s on, although it would be interesting to speculate he did anyway - there was a lot more blood than usual neat angel kills as he slit Abner’s throat rather than stabbing him in the conventional angel killing way) but yeah if he chose to kill him that’s wrath winning, and Gadreel goes on to supposedly kill hundreds of angels while unquestioningly working for Metatron so. I don’t know!

Anyway the actual character relationships on the lists don’t line up in order because Crowley is way beyond being just part of the job of killing evil, then you’d have Cas linked with a torturer, and the most emotionally conflicted one was the lover, not the brother. 

But comparing just the lovers there are a ton of superficial similarities between Abner and Cas at the time though, since the Gadreel finds him in is thematically 9x06 with Dean walking in on Cas’s new life, but Abner rejects Gadreel. I suppose flipping it over to look at it from 10x22, Cas refuses to leave Dean’s side, ever, in eternity, and Dean doesn’t kill him. 

Although TBH I’m much more interested in the season 9/early season 10 side of things watching them slip and then find redemption. This comparison is still killing me:

  


and the misdirected revenge/wrath/just trying to do good and failing completely sides of their stories fascinates me. Sam says Gadreel inside him felt like he had unfinished busiess which has set me on the path of very very long meta about Dean as a vengeful spirit, metaphorically, which in the end 10x13 demonstrated before I could get to it, but was basically a point I’d had in mind since 9x21 brought it up. 


	2. Cas and Cain Parallels

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> Saw your reblog of the Cain/Cas parallels and I couldn't help but rewatch the epi. There is an instance where Dean stabs Cain with the Demon blade (or rather Cain stabs himself) and it does nothing of course. Dean's look of surprise reminded me of when he stabbed Cas with the blade and it did nothing, I believe in the same spot. So many parallels...

* * *

Fun fact: that episode is 100% Sam from start to finish if you’re trying to quickly locate the bit where Cain gets stabbed. :P *gives up and watches a chunk of it*

Hey don’t you think the shadows make it look like Colette has lil’ burned out angel wings?

Ahahaha. Ha. Hhaaahahaaaa. Hhhhhhha. 

I do think it’s interesting that there’s the obvious parallel to Cas with Cain being stabbed though. I think it’s interesting that Abbadon still got hurt by the knife, even though it didn’t kill her: it made the same demony internal burning effects and floored her for a minute: she was super powerful and needed the First Blade to finish her off for good, but in the end she was just another demon, in that the knife reacted magically to her and caused her that pain. Likewise I remember vaguely back in season 4 Alastair getting stabbed and that not killing him outright (I think whoever stabbed him missed the heart anyways). He probably could have been killed with the knife with a bit of effort, but instead we had Sam busting in and psychically murdering him. When it’s a big bad villain the obvious weapon can’t kill them since it’s too easy: just like how Lucifer wasn’t taken down with the Colt. Showing the normal weapon being only half-effective is just the stepping stone to spur the characters to a previously un-thought of way of defeating them that is more emotionally relevant. (In Alastair and Abbadon’s cases, *badly* emotionally relevant, but character development runs both ways :P - Hey I wonder if you parallel those two deaths and then look at Sam defeating Lucifer with his actual genuine internal strength instead of the weird evil demony stuff he *thought* was his internal strength, if Dean’s gonna have some sort of similarly parallel-able emotional victory to come back around from the really awful not good way he killed Abbadon. WOW sidetracked.)

Anyway, comparing Cas and Cain… There was *no* effect with the knife and they have no fear of it because they’re completely different entities; things which the show makes it quite clear no one commonly understands (the wonderful nearly a season of researching Cain out of the bunker’s resources is hilarious in its futility and I stand by the fact that they’re making a fuss out of showing them failing to find anything out to make people ask over and over ‘yeah but how did Cain stop killing then?’ to make us never forget Colette :P All the lore is from the times when Cain was an angry unstoppable murder-demon, and the actual information on how he stopped has never been written down at all… Pfft).

The attempt and ineffectiveness of the knife is a great visual shorthand for how screwed Dean is in that instance if he just wanted to use brute strength, since the knife is their go-to weapon when it comes to demonic things. So he is forced instead to actually talk to the things he can’t kill, because it’s visual shorthand to Dean too that the normal methods are broken. With Cas, aside from being smirked at for trying, it’s a relatively, uh, friendly? stabbing? Can you have that? With Cain, though he’s establishing right up front that Dean’s out of his depth by forcing him to stab him. It’s basically getting all the bullcrap out of the way so they can actually have their conversation.

As for narrative parallels? I think in every way aside from that Cain’s meant to come across as mirroring Dean’s storylines, so I don’t think there’s too much to read into him as a Cas parallel because of the stabbing: we were presumably meant to remember the Cas thing, but just because it was a genuinely badass awesome and *memorable* moment from Cas, not for any storytelling past the immediate?

*sits around quietly amused by the beehive window in the background while Cain and Dean talk*

*sighs because looking at set stuff reminded me of the secret wings in the screenshot up there*

Well at least the important difference is established in this conversation: Dean didn’t kill Sam when his backstory was narratively similar to Cain’s backstory, and he never gives up on that and always wants everyone to come out of it alive… Perhaps the difference in brothers reflects back as a difference in how their Colettes will come out of it all.


	3. Dean As A Killer Through The Seasons And That House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> side note: this house is used in SO MANY episodes but these are the most visually obvious aside from anything else.

(bonus: rare sighting in daylight)

SPN set re-use: 2x03/5x13/9x11

Also just amused, as I slowly work my way through season 2 with a responsible adult who I can’t blurt plot stuff too, about what’s so interesting about these 3 locations.

2x03, which we watched last night, is that vampire episode with Gordon and the pacifist vampires, and this is their house. They’re off peacefully beekeeping and retired, if you will:

> LENORE  
> We’re not like the others. We don’t kill humans, and we don’t drink their blood. We haven’t for a long time. 

Meanwhile Dean is being challenged by Gordon over his very nature as a killer, to which Dean can’t give a satisfactory answer for his own peace of mind:

> GORDON  
> What are you doing, man? You doing this for a fang? Come on, Dean, we’re on the same side here. 
> 
> DEAN  
> I don’t think so, you sadistic bastard. 
> 
> GORDON  
> You’re not like your brother. You’re a killer. Like me. 
> 
> […]
> 
> DEAN  
> You know, I might be like you, and I might not. But you’re the one tied up right now. 
> 
> &

> DEAN  
> And the way he raised us, to hate those things; and man, I hate ‘em. I do. When I killed that vampire at the mill I didn’t even think about it; hell, I even enjoyed it.
> 
> SAM  
> You didn’t kill Lenore. 
> 
> DEAN   
> No, but every instinct told me to. I was gonna kill her. I was gonna kill 'em all. 

And then we get to 5x13:

> The Impala pulls up to a normal-looking house.
> 
> MARY leads the way inside, flipping on a lightswitch as she passes it. The place is very ill-maintained.
> 
> MARY  
> Place has been in the family for years.

And these fateful lines are delivered inside its walls:

> MICHAEL  
> You’re my true vessel but not my only one.
> 
> DEAN  
> What is that supposed to mean?
> 
> MICHAEL  
> It’s a bloodline.
> 
> DEAN  
> A bloodline?
> 
> MICHAEL  
> Stretching back to Cain and Abel. It’s in your blood, your father’s blood, your family’s blood.

So then of course we get to 9x11 and it shows up AGAIN, this time as Cain’s house, one that’s been in the family for generations of time, if you will, and Dean is confronted again with a fight inside its walls and his own nature as a killer…

> DEAN [Exhausted]  
> What was that? Some kind of a test? 
> 
> CAIN [sipping his beer]  
> I felt connected to you right from the beginning. Kindred spirits, if you will. You and I are very much alike.

&

> CAIN  
> The mark can be transferred to someone who’s worthy. 
> 
> DEAN  
> You mean a killer like you? 
> 
> CAIN  
> Yes.

…

And sometimes you just really have to take a step back and stare at this show and appreciate the stuff it does right.


	4. Say Hola to my Little Pistola, or Dean vs Harry

 

 

 

## Dean vs Harry

 

 

My best explanation is that I find the whole thing between them full of posturing, and I really don’t think either of them are attracted to each other to the point of like, any potential for a Thing, because they’re not even sexy nemeses to each other, like how things are and always have been, for example, with Dean and Crowley and their snark which occasionally-to-often goes these sort of places depending on the writer or season. 

But there’s a real full on sense of sexual posturing as  _threats_  between them as the first instance is sandwiched between two moments of Dean sincerely threatening to shoot them if they don’t skedaddle, and Harry definitely wins because both times he messes with Dean’s repression (”Uh.. both?”) or literally threatens to out him, which of course is a further reason I don’t think there’d be a hope in hell even for this to be a one episode Thing like for example Aaron… I was drawing parallels in my rewatch notes to the general premise, but of course Aaron is extremely non-threatening and gets to Dean in such a way he doesn’t even mind bringing it up first to not-explain the “gay thing” thing to Sam. (I… should stop saying thing. It’s been a long day and I’m consuming way more coffee than normal this week trying to get stuff done >.>) 

Anyways, though, the double speak threat mentioning outing can maybe show Harry knows full well what’s going on here (he may or may not have had a gaydar ping for Dean earlier in the show but tbh the treasure trail thing is probably enough to confirm any suspicions :P) and the whole sequence is very ambiguously shot of if they’re glancing at the authorities to out Dean as not an FBI agent, or at Sam for… other reasons… Dean wouldn’t want him to overhear this exchange:

Anyway I guess the ass slap was a sort of round 2 for Harry beating Dean out with the impossible to respond to “Both” which again isn’t really *flirting* so much as pushing back against Dean’s attempt at mocking/intimidation with a very well placed comment - like, not sure Harry would really know HOW effective that would be against Dean until he said it, while from the writing perspective it’s maybe more aware it’s exactly how to stump Dean into an enraged and confused silence for a couple of seconds. Which of course makes him coming back at Harry with the ass slap all the more obvious as a response to Round 1, upping the response with MORE vaguely sexual intimidation… like, yeah, an ass slap can just be an ass slap and maybe people do it all the time and not mean anything with it, but even in this episode they have past form. And then of course Harry’s response to that is the threat to “out” him (and oh man I will never shut up about what that badge means to Dean :P)

I’ll just, uh, leave this here, from the archives:

Re the "out me" comment - 

Oh season 9… 

I was going to make this regardless, but I wondered out loud that this had to have been done before since it seemed very likely, and [@justanotheridijiton](https://tmblr.co/msbbZom6stVUaSwCo2j0eeQ) found [this post](http://crossroadscastiel.tumblr.com/post/78745758691/yeah-man-the-best-of-both-worlds-salty-and) from the time this was all new which includes the example of 9x06 and “what team is he playing for” - I could easily go grab a gif of that too to round off this set but then you’d fall down the rabbit hole of all this type of language in season 9 (the ghostfacers are responsible for half of it, I swear… “we’re just puffs” … pfft), and I really only wanted to compare these 2 lines face to face for the use of the word “out” because it tickled me. 

9x06 and Cas’s situation is pretty much the same, just no one calls him on it to his face (e.g. that line which bears the most similarity is just something he overhears so it applies to him, but he’s asked directly in that episode “As an angel? or a man?” and it’s handled subtextually when Dean barges in on him at work talking too loudly about heavenly battles, and “outing” Cas as a former angel at his place of work if anyone were to overhear it), whereas Dean and Gadreel are taunted deliberately with this very specific challenge with a much more obviousl, immediate queer reading. I think the 3 of them are absolutely all connected, by this very specific “three times is a pattern” use of queer coded language, and discussing Cas, Dean and Gadreel’s experiences forms the sort of foundation of all this subtext in season 9… 

Aaah, it’s endlessly interesting to me, as the season I broke my teeth on for seriously making these readings.


	5. The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More, or Why It Made Me Interested In Meta

## A deep shade of blue is always there…

Fun story for Destiel day! I thought I’d talk about Meta Fiction and my favourite moment, which doesn’t even have Dean and Cas directly interacting with each other but was the moment I realised this ship had started sailing and I wasn’t even paying attention.

Until Meta Fiction I was a passive shipper who honestly didn’t really think about it outside of “hey there’s a new episode up, ooh, this one has Cas lol I bet he and Dean are going to do something cute together.” and that was pretty much as far as my enthusiasm went and, I stress, I never ever thought about it in a context of it being real or something that I could read into beyond good actor chemistry.

Also until Meta Fiction, I’d never heard that version of The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More. I’m not sure if that’s the original or a cover, but I know the only version I’d heard was a cover by the British indie piano pop-rock group Keane, who are from 10 minutes up the road from me and therefore I’ve had an obligatory sense of needing to own everything they ever released just because of geography. One of those things was a B-side with a cover of the song.

Backing up a moment, has everyone heard the 2 versions of Ironic by Alanis Morrissette? One of my friends is super in love with her voice so I’ve ended up hearing both many times, starting with the original Jagged Little Pill album. In the original version she sings it straight - “It’s like meeting the man of your dreams/and meeting his beautiful wife.” In the re-release on her acoustic album, there’s a subtle change which pretty much knocked me out of my chair the first time I heard it - “It’s like meeting the man of your dreams/and meeting his beautiful husband.”

Pretty much the same thing happened to me here, complete with the big gay realisation. In the Keane cover, the opening lines are sung nice and clearly, and run:

“Loneliness is the cloak you wear…”

So yeah, give me about 3 years of listening to this song fairly regularly because I am an unashamed fan of this group (a lot of their original songs are great for Destiel feels too FYI) and knew all their earlier stuff completely by heart, these are the lyrics I am familiar with.

Compare that to the song Metatron sticks on for the closing montage of the episode. So we have him rabbiting on about plot twists and characters surprising you to sum up the events of his little story he was so proud of telling. Then he goes ahead and puts on a vinyl of one of the songs I’ve spent a fair amount of time listening to as inspiration for my own writing. At first I don’t even recognise it: the instrumental is much better and richer, and then the wordless vocalisations begin and I’m just starting to get vibes that I know this song as we’re watching Dean’s face as he drives along, his angry-calm MoC state way obvious and on the surface now, right after Cas desperately asks Sam to look after him. And then we cut to Cas, and the music is suddenly definitely this tune I know, but no big deal, I’m just hearing a new, better version of it, right?

Yeah, then the lyrics start.

“Loneliness is the coat you wear…”

Mental blue screen of death.

_Coat_. The lyrics are unmistakable.

What was this episode, if not a story of Cas and his coat? For the first time in my life I hear the proper(?) lyrics of this song, while Cas is standing there, sort of generally existing and wearing a coat, and despite the subtle change in lyrics, I know the rest of this song well enough to sing along top volume if I so wanted. Oh no, I think. Oh no.

And there’s Metatron, delightedly hammering out original fiction to the tune of this song, and there’s Cas tearing off his coat in response to that line - oh no. A deep shade of blue is always there? Yeah, it’s about depression and loneliness and Cas has just thrown away his coat-of-loneliness and yeeeep he’s summoning the angels, I knew it. I knew it as soon as I recognised the song. He takes the coat off as a symbol of banishing the loneliness, right? Right?

But wait I know this song. And… No, they’re not. They’re just not. The show is not going to do this whole thing about the angels and how that’s going to make the sun not shine any more… But isn’t this really incongruous? Because even though the lyrics aren’t 100% what I remember them, I know this song. I know the next line, and it’s going to contrast Cas gaining this new family to not having love, because if he’s meeting them right NOW then there’s got to be something else he’s missing…

WE CAN NOT BE CUTTING BACK TO THE IMPALA DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT LYRICS ARE COMING NEXT? DO YOU?

WHY ARE YOU BACK WITH THE ANGELS AGAIN? WHY ON EARTH DID YOU THROW IN 0.01 SECONDS OF IMPALA DRIVING RIGHT BEFORE THE NEXT LINE? WHERE CAS IS WEARING HIS COAT AND ‘TEARS ARE CLOUDING HIS EYES" THERE WAS LITERALLY NO NEED FOR IT THIS LAST SECTION IS ALL ABOUT CAS. WHY IS HE WEARING THE COAT? WHY DID YOU SHOW THE CAR FOR NO REASON?

“… When you’re without looooove,” the band carries on singing like they have no idea what they’re being montaged with. Just Cas, greeting his new angel army. And like, that’s it for song and the episode, definitely it for incongruous and unnecessary shots of the Winchesters. We get a few more seconds of Cas and his angel army and  _he’s wearing his loneliness coat despite having this new family_ , and he’s greeting them as the music tells us that the sun isn’t going to shine any more because he’s doing the thing the entire episode told us was the last thing he ever wanted to do, and Metatron is smirking away wrapping up his story… And… And…

At this point the entire episode and then the entire season, and then the entire show from 4x01 onwards flashes through my head. And I hear my brother’s voice echoing in my head, “ _Tumblr_ ” and I know it is where the fandoms go. Surely someone else there will understand what just happened, and tell me that Metatron did not just tell me almost completely outright that Cas is in love with Dean? 

And so for Destiel day I’m raising a glass to Metatron and the crappy indie pop I grew up listening to. Thank you for making Destiel inescapable. I think. This ship will probably kill me but what are you going to do about it?


	6. Did Metatron Read Fan Fic?

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> Do you think Metatron ever read spn fanfics? Though he seems to be the type to look down on anyone else's fics than his own, maybe he read them to be super condescending? I don't know what to think about the fact that Cas is our gate way to know about Metatron's taste. Did Metatron read Destiel fics?? (Good thing Crowlatron fics are not available in spn world *shudders*)

* * *

The good thing for Cas is that it looked like Metatron had only just caught himself up on the series in 9x18 and didn’t seem to care too much about them except for the helpful catch up on the plot since he thought they were pretty trashy. I have a feeling that despite basically the entire Western literary canon being some sort of fan fic or other, he wouldn’t recognise the irony and have snobby opinions about it. He just looks the type to me. :P So Cas probably scraped by without getting any, uh, additional materials crammed into his brain. (Metatron said he read all the books possible to read completely indiscriminately, so I always figure he has no taste at all, since he doesn’t really specialise in anything. But he does have that Word of God background which would make him in my eyes quite adverse to “apocrypha” like fan fiction.)

On the other hand, only season 1-3 were the printed books, and yet he knew all about Gabriel (and he didn’t even know the apocalypse had happened or who the  _Winchesters_  were when we first met him so the catch up on Gabriel would have had to come from the books), so he clearly had read the books on the internet, which would take him into fan site territory. Once again, I think he would have snobbily gone for what he knew to be the “proper” canon since that is all that would help him  _plot_  wise, without realising the transformative works would have all the interesting character stuff that could help him try to understand his playing pieces and probably do a better job of it.

Now, here comes the awkward question: how did he know to look for all this? He knew about prophets, as all the angels do, and so he would have had Chuck’s name in his head because, God or not depending on what you believe, he passed off as a prophet for years and so he’d have been on the list. So Metatron would have known there was a prophet active during the apocalypse years, and could have done his research based on the name.

Becky knew Chuck Shirley was his real name, so I suppose on the internet fandom could have used his real name to make themselves seem closer to the whole thing by being on first name terms, so it’s possible Google would have got Metatron there.

(I like to think that because of his fancy old fashioned office he was refusing to be hip with the times, and so he sized up Gadreel’s more youthful vessel and assumed he’d somehow be more equipped to deal with this despite an eternity of imprisonment (don’t get me started on the hilarity of them as a team), and send him to a nearby internet café to google stuff for him. It probably happened upwards of 10 times a day. *insert Gadreel’s looking-at-Metatron face here*)

Here’s where the Crowlatron tinhatting comes in. Because Crowley has been associated with the Winchester Gospels since his introduction as a named character. It’s easy enough to deduce between his “literary agent” comment and how he sneaked a chapter about himself into the books and so on that he was someone with a controlling interest in the books - I also feel he may be the mysterious buyer who tried to get the books back into publication in season 5, since the angels had a direct line to Chuck and wouldn’t care about human distribution, but it WOULD have given Crowley direct access to the manuscripts at the earliest possible time.

Only in season 8, Crowley had been using the books against Sam and Dean in much the same way Metatron utilised them as a cheat sheet on Cas. (As part of my ongoing vendetta against Dabb & his awful continuity, one of the victims in 8x22 was from season 7, which if we assume wasn’t Dabb being Dabb clearly means Crowley has been observing all the MotW episodes since season 6 or so just for his own ends, and also shows his own adaptability and resourcefulness that Metatron did not use by sticking too rigidly to the books for help :P)

So we have Metatron using Crowley’s methods, in an episode where he borrows from the text to try and use other people’s methods to get his own way. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Furthermore, Metatron knows about Crowley and his interest in the tablets and word of God stuff in general - their one canonical interaction is Metatron snatching Kevin back from Crowley in The Great Escapist and leaving him burned. Of course there’s no indication he paid any attention to him after that, except that they had that connection from the start of the back and forth between them of owning or wanting the tablets, and squabbling over Kevin, and the 3rd part of that in-show word of God is the Winchester Gospels, which aren’t exactly contested in the same way but make a missing link in the Crowlatron parallels. 

Ergo, if you skip the “Gadreel in an internet café” step, we could have Metatron tracking down the paper copy of the Gospels and through whatever means, stumbling on Crowley’s expired interests in it one way or another (there’s nothing in canon to say Crowley knows about season 4-5 books but everything about him suggests he would know), quickly leading to actual off-screen Crowlatron interaction, even through minions rather than face to face, to get Metatron the paper copy of the apocalypse era books (he just seems the sort who would miss the importance of the internet and place value on paper copy as if it were an important artefact to be located rather than, like, something he could pull up on his phone in a minute of searching :P). Since his main issue in season 9 was Cas, he’d probably A: overlook the internet with his paper-based thinking and B: be extremely desperate to get ahold of Cas-related reading material, so I can see this happening. 

I’m… not sure what this was all about.

Possibly a missing branch of this train of logic jumps to the fact that while Metatron has not read any Destiel fics, Crowley almost certainly has, and probably is active in book!fandom. :P


	7. Dean’s Raging Jealousy Of Hannah In 9x22

Dean’s raging jealously of Hannah in 9x22… Never gets old. :D

Especially amused by how she returns his smile and just *fades out* out of spite. Also because plot stuff is about to happen behind her. But I like to think that was intentional.

I may or may not have been really fascinated with this back in season 10, and never really explored the idea properly beyond suggesting that I thought without a doubt that Dean was JEALOUS of Hannah up to and including thinking Cas may have had a thing for her. 

Anyway here’s a longer post blabbing on about that because I couldn’t stop myself, probably best read in conjuction[ with my rewatch](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/157911404468/9x22-rewatch-god-the-end-of-season-9-was-some), but not essential because I probably repeat myself here for clarity and go much further :D

The top gifs are Dean meeting her for the first time as I guess she had somewhere more important to be than 9x21 (good for her), but Dean already complained about “Commander” then, and Dean expressed discomfort with it that makes a lot of sense with the surface text of what’s going on in this episode too:

> DEAN  
> So…Commander?
> 
> CASTIEL  
> Yeah, not my idea. They had no leader, and they insisted on following me.
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah. No, we get it. You’re a rock star.

(He’s not jealous of Cas for being a rock star, he’s worried about Cas getting sucked into angel politics and the whole Godstiel thing haunting him as we see Cas in charge of angels for like, the first and last time since then - finding out he’s got this scary title despite Cas’s protestations (busy not having the power go to his head or lying to Dean about anything) just makes Dean really unnerved)

But yeah, “It’s just creepy” starts off the 9x22 stuff where Dean relates to the angels in Cas’s army in a different way, with a layer in the subtext where he finds their interest in Cas worrying in a way that making sexual jabs about the women who like their name heard thing comes into it - the angels aren’t just a rival for his attention, but also in a way romantic/sexual rivals (the whole army… Get it, Cas :P Dean’s imagination is… kind of terrifying when you look backwards through the process he must subconsciously run through to say the things he does…) - No, he puts that all on Hannah, who is too eager to see Cas for Dean’s liking, greets him personally, and is a great face for romantic rivalry because she’s cute and sharp in a way most angels don’t seem to be. Despite calling him “Commander” she’s clearly taking initiative around that weird HQ.

She was already set up as a romantic false lead with this idea of the angel army being such a distraction in the “Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More” montage in 9x18 - with a very nice safe hindsight that this is years in the past I think it’s safe to talk about this now because last time I remember it being discussed was during a fandom freak out she was going to be Cas’s love interest…

Clearly even Metatron wanted to set it up :P I think this vibe was enough in that “het ship shares a pencil and romance is alive” way that Hannah was clearly awed and interested in him, and that’s enough to plant the idea for now. 

Dean’s the one who storms in and turns her into a romantic rival with his jabs about Cas’s cult coming after being really hyper-focussed on Hannah and Cas’s interactions, and his amusing reactions to her or stuff Cas says about the angels.

The framing that comes at the end of 9x22 is overtly about Metatron’s words – the angel politics that’s super important in their war. And Hannah has a justified reason:

> HANNAH  
> He murdered Tessa. He broke our rules.

But considering the brief hints of Hannah’s interest in Cas, which we know WILL become more textual (even if it’s to her own confusion about what’s happening to her emotions and body) I think that’s an interesting example of the surface level politics reasonable explanation, with Hannah then also having her own subtext moment, while it’s kind of obvious Cas is picking Dean over her. The choice to have it so Cas essentially picks between Dean and the  _army_  becomes about being between Dean and  _her_ , as Dean has already established at the start of the episode that his tension with the army is personified against her and with that romantic rival edge to it. 

The same thing that has the end of this episode with Metatron teasing Cas about “in love… with humanity” can be turned on Hannah with the “all for one man” thing the next episode – maybe she doesn’t feel SO strongly, but if personal motivations were involved, it does make it more interesting and I don’t think anyone’s really deeply re-examined season 9 stuff knowing season 10 stuff (at least that I’ve seen while keeping an eye on all the meta I can), like that Hannah was used as a clear romantic foil in the opening, and became confused enough about her feelings it was discussed openly.

Anyway, that’s what we know, but I’m mostly amused by what Dean knows, because I think as far as Hannah is concerned he puts her out of mind until:

Which, incidentally, is one of the worst lines they’ve ever put in Cas’s mouth but anyway I digress, maybe that’s just how they think he would talk without thinking about how gross and objectifying it sounds… 

The point is, it makes Dean tip his head like “what” – clearly not expecting Cas to be driving around with a lady friend – the incongruous language highlights that Cas is talking about a woman, at least, and teases Dean with the idea that Cas has randomly acquired a girlfriend while Dean didn’t see him for three months while HE was running around being a demon. 

It seems like it’s never mentioned again, when it comes to Dean’s reactions to Hannah, and 10x17 is such a secret I don’t think Dean ever found out they did it. I don’t remember anyone telling him Metatron was out and about again until 11x03 casually treated it like it was a known fact – actually, giffing this has made me wonder if it was revealed in 10x21 but I’m not going to go look and you can’t make me. Anyway.

Cas mentions Hannah was the one who found his grace, and I wish I’d found a high def version of this because it seems to be the one episode I DON’T have a good version of, and I’m 1 and a half episodes off the point in the rewatch where I suck it up and buy season 10 DVDs before I continue…

[Here’s a good screencap from Home of the Nutty anyway](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D226%26pid%3D294253%23top_display_media&t=ZGMzOWYxZGU4MTcwYzZjYTUyZmY0M2I4ODFjYTVmOTkzZmRmNmQ5ZCxqOTNZYXpXcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F157911917488%2Felizabethrobertajones-deans-raging-jealously-of&m=1):

Dean’s face stays troubled when Cas says it was Hannah, like, this isn’t a good enough reason to be happy. Maybe he just really does not trust angels still or feels there will be consequences, but this history is there. 10x03 had the infamous bed clearing 

and the implication Cas could have stayed there with Dean, but his leaving is framed as a rejection, and the mention of Hannah doubly so. Of course in 10x17 Cas accidentally-deliberately cuts ties with Heaven pretty much permanently so far by falling out with Hannah over Dean by once again prioritising him, and getting his grace back is a side-effect of those actions. So his choice of lie highlights the ~love triangle aspect~ by bringing her back into it – now it seems like she has been friendly and helping Cas the whole time as far as Dean knows, because he and Cas haven’t been talking very well, and I doubt they ever discuss Hannah, and I don’t know if Dean could even be sure the “female in the car” was her until Cas says this. Now it sees even more certain, especially if they ever had a stilted off-screen conversation about what Cas had been doing between 10x03 and 10x07, or even how Cas ended up at the Bunker in the first place in time to save Sam from Dean. (Do they even know Crowley saved Cas then??)

Anyway. Reaction gif and the next one to discuss. 

Here he looks Cas up and down, weighing the relief of getting Cas back in one piece, and shrugs it off. Who cares how it happened, Cas is fine, we will just repress the whole thing and never mention it again. Maybe Cas mentions in 11x03 or some time after that Hannah is dead, maybe not, although she obviously no longer plays a role in Cas’s life to Dean’s eyes. Dean is very eager to forget it, comically shrugging, and Sam and Cas are relieved that it’s over, so their lies don’t get caught out. I wonder if Cas KNEW that Dean’s dislike/jealousy of Hannah would be a good way to make him back off asking too many questions?

That’s pretty much all of Dean’s response to Cas and Hannah, anyway, and I think it’s a fair amount of nonsense to suggest he did literally think she was Cas’s girlfriend, if you want to factor that into how Dean treats Cas about stuff like dating…


End file.
